A conservative's response

4/25/2013

A conservative's response

This is in response to, "Matter with Kansas? You're kidding, right?" (HDN, April 19) by Bob Hooper.

Mr. Hooper, your column evidenced an offensive and deep-rooted religious bias and you insensitively mocked my religion. You begin citing Rhonda Winter (credentials?) that the strength of an economy is related to the disparity between the wealthiest .001 percent and the bottom 90 percent; that a large gap helped fuel the Great Depression (it did?) and that today's gap is even larger. It's a voodoo mathematical correlation and conclusion, and it's over-simplified. It's nonsense.

Mr. Hooper, your column evidenced an offensive and deep-rooted religious bias and you insensitively mocked my religion. You begin citing Rhonda Winter (credentials?) that the strength of an economy is related to the disparity between the wealthiest .001 percent and the bottom 90 percent; that a large gap helped fuel the Great Depression (it did?) and that today's gap is even larger. It's a voodoo mathematical correlation and conclusion, and it's over-simplified. It's nonsense.

You said that under Ronald Reagan's eight-year term the national debt increased $2.8 trillion, but you failed to mention that in only four years, Obama increased it more than $4 trillion. You criticized Republican but not Democrat presidents (they were all without fault?). True, we were led into war but an offensive rather than a defensive posture avoided risk of more homeland terrorist attacks.

Based on graphical data, you said the middle class grew until 1964 as taxes on the wealthiest increased, then went down as the taxes on the wealthiest decreased. The wealthy must be taxed to grow a middle class? Excessive taxation, over-regulation and a poor economy affect the middle class adversely. The data and graphs are mostly meaningless. But I agree with you unions have contributed to better wages and working conditions but, with respect to public employees, some limits to bargaining are necessary due to an absence of a profit and loss control factor and occasionally, unions seek too much of what Samuel Gompers said they wanted, more. It is a bargaining strategy, but have you noticed the kind of benefits UAW members have? Was it appropriate for the president to benefit the UAW at taxpayers' expense in the bailout of GM? I also agree that banks, large corporations and the super wealthy have too much influence on legislators, but you wrongly infer that only Republicans are responsible. Did not both parties fail to enforce antitrust laws, thus requiring bailouts? My wallet gets thinner not solely by what conservatives have done as you imply, but mostly by rising inflation and increased taxation during the past four years of liberals' control. By the way, I (an alleged homo sappy un) do accept data in a graphical format, but I apply a "garbage in, garbage out" criterion.

By your definition, I'm a homo sappy un because I am "conservative, believe in no limits to the Second Amendment, listen to Fox News, believe in the 10 Commandments, support prayer in schools, define marriage as between man and woman, and oppose abortion." You claim that you and your kind are the homo sapiens. From my perspective, you have it reversed.